heart rate problems - Triathlon Week

12-10-2004, 12:52 PM

I am now about 3 weeks into training and to get a good base and/or some fat
burn I havae read that I should but exercising at about 70-80% of my max
which at the age method would be in the mid 140's.

My problem is that when exercising my HR is between 170-185 on the norm and
I relly don't feel I am exerting much force. I could still hold a
conversation if need be, albeit a little breth in between. I am by no means
going all out either.

Here's some helpers: 33 yrs, 6'3", only a month into exercising seriously,
220 lbs, when ewxersising and stopping my HR goes down quite quickly (I
think) it goes from about 180 to 157-163 in about one minute.

Any ideas or helpers onthis issue would be great.

Thanks,

Brian

12-10-2004, 02:48 PM

B wrote:
> I am now about 3 weeks into training and to get a good base and/or some fat
> burn I havae read that I should but exercising at about 70-80% of my max
> which at the age method would be in the mid 140's.
>
> My problem is that when exercising my HR is between 170-185 on the norm and
> I relly don't feel I am exerting much force. I could still hold a
> conversation if need be, albeit a little breth in between. I am by no means
> going all out either.
>
> Here's some helpers: 33 yrs, 6'3", only a month into exercising seriously,
> 220 lbs, when ewxersising and stopping my HR goes down quite quickly (I
> think) it goes from about 180 to 157-163 in about one minute.
>
> Any ideas or helpers onthis issue would be great.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Brian
>
>

When I started exercising again 3 years ago I was in a similar situation
.. If I was running (and you could barely call it that) it was
automatically above 140 and for more than 5 mins was definitely above
150. The thing I found with the HRM was it forced me to take it easy
when I was getting started. A few times previously I'd started an
exercise program but got injured and stopped. By strictly following my
plan with the HRM, which forced me to alternate walking and running for
the first few months I've now gone three years without an injury and
gettign ready for my first Olympic Dist Tri. It sounds like you're a big
guy so taking it easy at the start is pretty important to avoid injury.
Good Luck.

DaveB

12-10-2004, 04:42 PM

B wrote:
> I am now about 3 weeks into training and to get a good base and/or some fat
> burn I havae read that I should but exercising at about 70-80% of my max
> which at the age method would be in the mid 140's.
>
> My problem is that when exercising my HR is between 170-185 on the norm and
> I relly don't feel I am exerting much force. I could still hold a
> conversation if need be, albeit a little breth in between. I am by no means
> going all out either.
>
> Here's some helpers: 33 yrs, 6'3", only a month into exercising seriously,
> 220 lbs, when exersising and stopping my HR goes down quite quickly (I
> think) it goes from about 180 to 157-163 in about one minute.
>
> Any ideas or helpers on this issue would be great.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Brian

One possibility is that you simply have a higher maximum heart rate than
normal for your age. That is what I am concluding about my situation.
If you do a google groups search on high maximum heart rate you will
find this topic comes up on many different groups and there are quite a
lot of people out there with maximum heart rates unusually high for
their age. The closest I've found to a reliable article about it is:
[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

I figure someone has to be two standard deviations from the norm. I'm a
49 year old woman and my maximum heart rate is 201.

I told my doctor about my high maximum heart rate (I had reached 194 on
my bicycle) and she sent me to a cardiologist with a diagnosis of
tachycardia (though my heart rate when I first wake up in the morning is
under 60). The cardiologist said I should have a stress test and an
echocardiogram. I did the stress test (if you do it make sure that your
doctor writes on the order to let your heart rate go high--otherwise
they stop you when you reach the maximum for your age) and I felt
great--at a heart rate of 191 I was by no means out of breath and was
eager to keep going. But the doctor monitoring the test insisted that I
stop because an abnormality had showed up in the EKG when my heart rate
went above 170. The abnormality was that the ST part of the wave dropped
down below the isoelectrical level, which can be a sign of a partial
blockage. Other people have that abnormality when nothing at all is
wrong. The cardiologist wanted to do a heart catheterization to check
for a partial blockage. I've always had very good cholesterol numbers
and have no family history of heart disease so I found it hard to
believe I could have a blockage. I talked to some friends and then told
the cardiologist I wanted a nuclear stress test instead (what used to be
called a thallium stress test, but they don't use thallium any more). I
had that last week and reached a maximum heart rate of 201 on the
treadmill. The results of the test were completely normal: not only did
it show good blood supply to the heart, but the EKG abnormality didn't
show up.

The cardiologist was still concerned about my high maximum heart rate.
He wanted to give me a beta blocker to lower it (and my blood pressure,
which in the doctor's office isn't high but it is getting borderline for
a type 2 diabetic). I'm not going to do that, at least without getting
a second opinion first from a cardiologist who specializes in athletes
(the trouble is finding one--anyone know one in the GA, SC, NC area?).
I'm wanting to do a sprint triathlon in May but I'm most serious about
bicycling. I've been back to bicycling 6 months, after not doing it
seriously since college, and I rode a 100 mile organized ride last
weekend. That was on the flat and I rode at 70 to 85% of my personal
maximum heart rate. I live in a hilly area, and occasionally I come to
a hill where my heart rate goes above 90% of maximum (that is, above
180), but I try to avoid going above 90% as much as possible.

I'm not convinced they are right, and at your age it probably depends on
whether you have any family history of heart disease, but a doctor might
well say you should have your high maximum heart rate checked out. My
approach is that now I know there isn't something wrong with my heart,
then I just plan my training based on my own personal maximum heart
rate. If I tried to train based on the normal numbers for my age, I
would never get anywhere.

Pam

12-10-2004, 06:09 PM

On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 19:42:15 -0500, pam_in_sc wrote:

> B wrote:
>> I am now about 3 weeks into training and to get a good base and/or some fat
>> burn I havae read that I should but exercising at about 70-80% of my max
>> which at the age method would be in the mid 140's.
>>
>> My problem is that when exercising my HR is between 170-185 on the norm and
>> I relly don't feel I am exerting much force. I could still hold a
>> conversation if need be, albeit a little breth in between. I am by no means
>> going all out either.
>>
>> Here's some helpers: 33 yrs, 6'3", only a month into exercising seriously,
>> 220 lbs, when exersising and stopping my HR goes down quite quickly (I
>> think) it goes from about 180 to 157-163 in about one minute.
>>
>> Any ideas or helpers on this issue would be great.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Brian
>
> One possibility is that you simply have a higher maximum heart rate than
> normal for your age. That is what I am concluding about my situation.
> If you do a google groups search on high maximum heart rate you will
> find this topic comes up on many different groups and there are quite a
> lot of people out there with maximum heart rates unusually high for
> their age. The closest I've found to a reliable article about it is:
> [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]
>
> I figure someone has to be two standard deviations from the norm. I'm a
> 49 year old woman and my maximum heart rate is 201.
>
> I told my doctor about my high maximum heart rate (I had reached 194 on
> my bicycle) and she sent me to a cardiologist with a diagnosis of
> tachycardia (though my heart rate when I first wake up in the morning is
> under 60). The cardiologist said I should have a stress test and an
> echocardiogram. I did the stress test (if you do it make sure that your
> doctor writes on the order to let your heart rate go high--otherwise
> they stop you when you reach the maximum for your age) and I felt
> great--at a heart rate of 191 I was by no means out of breath and was
> eager to keep going. But the doctor monitoring the test insisted that I
> stop because an abnormality had showed up in the EKG when my heart rate
> went above 170. The abnormality was that the ST part of the wave dropped
> down below the isoelectrical level, which can be a sign of a partial
> blockage. Other people have that abnormality when nothing at all is
> wrong. The cardiologist wanted to do a heart catheterization to check
> for a partial blockage. I've always had very good cholesterol numbers
> and have no family history of heart disease so I found it hard to
> believe I could have a blockage. I talked to some friends and then told
> the cardiologist I wanted a nuclear stress test instead (what used to be
> called a thallium stress test, but they don't use thallium any more). I
> had that last week and reached a maximum heart rate of 201 on the
> treadmill. The results of the test were completely normal: not only did
> it show good blood supply to the heart, but the EKG abnormality didn't
> show up.
>
> The cardiologist was still concerned about my high maximum heart rate.
> He wanted to give me a beta blocker to lower it (and my blood pressure,
> which in the doctor's office isn't high but it is getting borderline for
> a type 2 diabetic). I'm not going to do that, at least without getting
> a second opinion first from a cardiologist who specializes in athletes
> (the trouble is finding one--anyone know one in the GA, SC, NC area?).
> I'm wanting to do a sprint triathlon in May but I'm most serious about
> bicycling. I've been back to bicycling 6 months, after not doing it
> seriously since college, and I rode a 100 mile organized ride last
> weekend. That was on the flat and I rode at 70 to 85% of my personal
> maximum heart rate. I live in a hilly area, and occasionally I come to
> a hill where my heart rate goes above 90% of maximum (that is, above
> 180), but I try to avoid going above 90% as much as possible.
>
> I'm not convinced they are right, and at your age it probably depends on
> whether you have any family history of heart disease, but a doctor might
> well say you should have your high maximum heart rate checked out. My
> approach is that now I know there isn't something wrong with my heart,
> then I just plan my training based on my own personal maximum heart
> rate. If I tried to train based on the normal numbers for my age, I
> would never get anywhere.
>
> Pam

My guess is you have very good insurance that will pay for lots of
tests, medications etc. How sick you are is directly proportional
to how much $$$ can be extracted from your insurance company.

12-10-2004, 10:03 PM

I have a resting rate of about 50 after all is said and sone, thats while
watching the tube.

I guess my best course of action is just to try to make an appt with
cardiologist.

Brian
"swamprun" <swamprun@localhost.localdomain> wrote in message
news:pan.2004.12.11.02.09.24.374745@localhost.loca ldomain...
> On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 19:42:15 -0500, pam_in_sc wrote:
>
>> B wrote:
>>> I am now about 3 weeks into training and to get a good base and/or some
>>> fat
>>> burn I havae read that I should but exercising at about 70-80% of my max
>>> which at the age method would be in the mid 140's.
>>>
>>> My problem is that when exercising my HR is between 170-185 on the norm
>>> and
>>> I relly don't feel I am exerting much force. I could still hold a
>>> conversation if need be, albeit a little breth in between. I am by no
>>> means
>>> going all out either.
>>>
>>> Here's some helpers: 33 yrs, 6'3", only a month into exercising
>>> seriously,
>>> 220 lbs, when exersising and stopping my HR goes down quite quickly (I
>>> think) it goes from about 180 to 157-163 in about one minute.
>>>
>>> Any ideas or helpers on this issue would be great.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Brian
>>
>> One possibility is that you simply have a higher maximum heart rate than
>> normal for your age. That is what I am concluding about my situation.
>> If you do a google groups search on high maximum heart rate you will
>> find this topic comes up on many different groups and there are quite a
>> lot of people out there with maximum heart rates unusually high for
>> their age. The closest I've found to a reliable article about it is:
>> [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]
>>
>> I figure someone has to be two standard deviations from the norm. I'm a
>> 49 year old woman and my maximum heart rate is 201.
>>
>> I told my doctor about my high maximum heart rate (I had reached 194 on
>> my bicycle) and she sent me to a cardiologist with a diagnosis of
>> tachycardia (though my heart rate when I first wake up in the morning is
>> under 60). The cardiologist said I should have a stress test and an
>> echocardiogram. I did the stress test (if you do it make sure that your
>> doctor writes on the order to let your heart rate go high--otherwise
>> they stop you when you reach the maximum for your age) and I felt
>> great--at a heart rate of 191 I was by no means out of breath and was
>> eager to keep going. But the doctor monitoring the test insisted that I
>> stop because an abnormality had showed up in the EKG when my heart rate
>> went above 170. The abnormality was that the ST part of the wave dropped
>> down below the isoelectrical level, which can be a sign of a partial
>> blockage. Other people have that abnormality when nothing at all is
>> wrong. The cardiologist wanted to do a heart catheterization to check
>> for a partial blockage. I've always had very good cholesterol numbers
>> and have no family history of heart disease so I found it hard to
>> believe I could have a blockage. I talked to some friends and then told
>> the cardiologist I wanted a nuclear stress test instead (what used to be
>> called a thallium stress test, but they don't use thallium any more). I
>> had that last week and reached a maximum heart rate of 201 on the
>> treadmill. The results of the test were completely normal: not only did
>> it show good blood supply to the heart, but the EKG abnormality didn't
>> show up.
>>
>> The cardiologist was still concerned about my high maximum heart rate.
>> He wanted to give me a beta blocker to lower it (and my blood pressure,
>> which in the doctor's office isn't high but it is getting borderline for
>> a type 2 diabetic). I'm not going to do that, at least without getting
>> a second opinion first from a cardiologist who specializes in athletes
>> (the trouble is finding one--anyone know one in the GA, SC, NC area?).
>> I'm wanting to do a sprint triathlon in May but I'm most serious about
>> bicycling. I've been back to bicycling 6 months, after not doing it
>> seriously since college, and I rode a 100 mile organized ride last
>> weekend. That was on the flat and I rode at 70 to 85% of my personal
>> maximum heart rate. I live in a hilly area, and occasionally I come to
>> a hill where my heart rate goes above 90% of maximum (that is, above
>> 180), but I try to avoid going above 90% as much as possible.
>>
>> I'm not convinced they are right, and at your age it probably depends on
>> whether you have any family history of heart disease, but a doctor might
>> well say you should have your high maximum heart rate checked out. My
>> approach is that now I know there isn't something wrong with my heart,
>> then I just plan my training based on my own personal maximum heart
>> rate. If I tried to train based on the normal numbers for my age, I
>> would never get anywhere.
>>
>> Pam
>
> My guess is you have very good insurance that will pay for lots of
> tests, medications etc. How sick you are is directly proportional
> to how much $$$ can be extracted from your insurance company.
>

12-11-2004, 04:33 AM

swamprun wrote:
> My guess is you have very good insurance that will pay for lots of
> tests, medications etc. How sick you are is directly proportional
> to how much $$$ can be extracted from your insurance company.

Yes, you are right, I have old-fashioned Blue Cross Blue Sheild, not an
HMO (I live in such a rural area that there aren't HMOs available).
Given my history, which is totally unsuggestive of heart disease except
for the diabetes which is under extremely good control, the tests that
were done on me were not cost-effective medicine. The cardiologist said
he wanted to do a catheterization because it is 99% accurate while the
nuclear stress test is 85% accurate, but obviously he also would have
made a lot more money that way. I refused that, but I did want to go
ahead with some test that would reassure me that I didn't have a heard
problem before continuing to go further into high intensity exercise.

Pam

12-11-2004, 04:40 AM

B wrote:

> I have a resting rate of about 50 after all is said and sone, thats while
> watching the tube.
>
> I guess my best course of action is just to try to make an appt with
> cardiologist.
>
> Brian

With a good resting heart rate and a good recovery rate after exertion
and no chest pain or tightness, a doctor might well say there is no need
to be tested. But if you want to get a stress test that would both give
you reassurance and also give you a measurement of your maximum heart
rate (assuming they let you go until you are close to your limit instead
of stopping you when you reach the usual maximum rate for your age).

Pam

12-11-2004, 06:08 AM

Maybe the cardiologist has your best interests in mind, and her/his own
too. Say you have the stress test, the next event your at you drop dead
from cardiac related reasons (I hope this never happens). Your family
goes to court and sues the cardiologist for doing a test that is 85%
accurate when there is a 99% accurate test available.
Ask yourself, do I want to be 99% sure or 85% sure? (assuming those are
accurate numbers)
You need to discuss the risks and benefits with your physician and get a
qualified second opinion. I wish you all the best and a long healthy
triathlon filled life!
Cheers Onne

pam_in_sc wrote:
> swamprun wrote:
>
>> My guess is you have very good insurance that will pay for lots of
>> tests, medications etc. How sick you are is directly proportional
>> to how much $$$ can be extracted from your insurance company.
>
>
> Yes, you are right, I have old-fashioned Blue Cross Blue Sheild, not an
> HMO (I live in such a rural area that there aren't HMOs available).
> Given my history, which is totally unsuggestive of heart disease except
> for the diabetes which is under extremely good control, the tests that
> were done on me were not cost-effective medicine. The cardiologist said
> he wanted to do a catheterization because it is 99% accurate while the
> nuclear stress test is 85% accurate, but obviously he also would have
> made a lot more money that way. I refused that, but I did want to go
> ahead with some test that would reassure me that I didn't have a heard
> problem before continuing to go further into high intensity exercise.
>
> Pam
>

12-11-2004, 02:53 PM

Onne wrote:
> Maybe the cardiologist has your best interests in mind, and her/his own
> too. Say you have the stress test, the next event your at you drop dead
> from cardiac related reasons (I hope this never happens). Your family
> goes to court and sues the cardiologist for doing a test that is 85%
> accurate when there is a 99% accurate test available.
> Ask yourself, do I want to be 99% sure or 85% sure? (assuming those are
> accurate numbers)
> You need to discuss the risks and benefits with your physician and get a
> qualified second opinion. I wish you all the best and a long healthy
> triathlon filled life!
> Cheers Onne

An 85% accurate test, in the absence of any symptoms and with another
test (echocardiogram) backing it up, it plenty good enough for me.
Particularly when the test I refused involved sticking a tube into a
vein in the groin and threading it up to the heart to take
pictures--commonly done but not risk free. Besides, the test I had gave
information about my heart's blood supply during exercise while the
catheterization gives information about the condition of the arteries.
The two kinds of information are not 100% correlated and I would rather
have functional information than structural information.

We all have to make our own choices in these things. These issues are
going to be increasingly difficult as medicine progresses. I was in a
meeting recently in which a doctor talked about not knowing what to do
when a patient has an MRI for some other reason and it shows a few signs
of multiple sclerosis, but the patient has no symptoms. It isn't know
whether such patients inevitably progress to the disease. Tell the
patient and consider it good news to have caught the disease early? Or
ignore it until symptoms appear, if they ever do? There are many
situations in which more knowledge is not necessarily a good thing.

Pam

12-13-2004, 04:07 AM

Hi, nobody else mentioned it so I will do it.

Exactly what do you think your problem is? You should not trust the age
formula when calculating your max HR. It is very variable. You can and
should calculate your own max HR (or LT) if you are into more serious
training. You can calculate them using a number of methodologies. You
can google this group for "max HR calculation" or something similar. I
have no doubt you will find more than enough.

It seems to me that your max HR is somewhat above the one calculated
using the age formula.

All said, sometimes you *should* train above 70-80% range, but maybe
when you improve your base.

HTH,
Burak

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